So where are last season’s awe-inspiring shapes and sleek fabrics, designer judge Michael Kors’ biting commentary and dorm-mother Tim Gunn’s freshness and charm?

This season’s promise seems to have evaporated, along with Kors.

We’re bored! BORED!

Yet last night’s show yielded surprises.

Perhaps most astonishing was that Angela — the fashion victim from Ohio — won the challenge, with a reined-in look, including a rosette-adorned bullfighter’s cropped jacket and wide slacks in menswear charcoal with a pastel pink top. (Could it be that her assisting designers, the ultra-chic Laura and the hip Michael, were able to influence her? Of course! Angela never met a challenge she couldn’t push onto someone else’s bony shoulders.)

Somehow the assistants kept their cool, though Laura’s asides to the camera were the fresh bites for a show that seems declawed without Kors and last season’s Tim-mocking Santino. ”We were all happy with Angela’s fabric selection,” Laura said. ”It was more appropriate for this particular challenge than the full-tilt boogie Angela quilted extravaganza of puff.” Yet later she added, ”Oh my God, she’s making granny circles again!”

Ouch — and so true. How many poofs and flowerettes can one woman wear on a mini, often with flashy tights? Is she not aware that high-school was over for her 20 years ago — and those outfits should’ve remained buried in an attic hope-less chest?

Another shock was the three men most prone to excess were dull: “Mr. Barbie” Robert, “Pageant Boy” Kayne and lounge-lizard Vincent. It was all the more ironic that Vincent — he of the bread-basket headpiece — exclaimed ”Kayne has the taste of a love-starved hyena.” The trio’s kick-ass parka (which Bonnie, the Nike designer, should have created) couldn’t obscure — I mean save — the dull white-collared top and pencil skirt with perilously Mariah Carey-high slit. Declared judge Elle magazine’s Nina Garcia, ”It was boring!”

The only thing worse were Bonnie’s cheap-looking pink cowl and brown pants, which a Macy’s vice president branded, ”Triple LY: last year, last year, last year.” Now she’s so last week, having been booted from the show.

Not so astonishing was Keith being caught cheating. You almost have to hand it to the ex-model with his Jude Law dirty dishiness. He knew he wasn’t up to the job. He may not have done it with the nanny, but he purportedly cribbed his audition sketches from the pros, then used contraband internet guides and fashion how-to books. He even weaseled a store on camera to give him a discount so he could exceed, in effect, the allowed $100 fabric budget. And so, despite being the first week’s winner for witty red buttons on the back of a navy bed sheet, he was evicted mid-show.

At his most poignant and precise, Tim said, ”Project Runway is nothing without its integrity and seriousness of purpose.”

Of course, like so many reality show losers, Keith blamed his fall on others ”finding scapegoats.” Sent scurrying like the dog he refused to dress last week, he held onto his delusions of grandeur. ”I always break the rules a tiny bit because I think I’m right,” he said. ”The sad part is I never used those books to give myself an advantage. I would’ve made it pretty far. I had a lot of tricks up my sleeve … still.”

Don’t know about you, but we’re hoping the show has some tricks up its sleeves. No one has wowed us in weeks. And not only Garcia is bored. We are. Thank God Kors — and his cutting yet constructive remarks — returns next week.

Angela SO won it bec. of Laura and Michael. Those two can construct and they can sew AND they’ve both got quite the sense of style, like it or not (I am so happy Michael has not shown his HO stylin’, though…in his portfolio (the casting of show, in case you missed it) in one of the photos, it was MTV raw at its ho-iest. I think it was Nina who said, “He just doesn’t KNOW.”)

Heck, I even liked Angie’s rosettes oh-so-tastefully placed as (instead of) buttons and the one or two at the back of the neck…She needs to learn subtle, which is what this had going for it.

What with Malan AND Keith gone (was it just me, or was “more tricks up my sleeve” not such a great choice of words when you’re getting booted for cheating?) who can I hate..hmmm. Who can I hate…it has to be Vincent. Ever since he wowed himself so much with the basket hat, I want him gone. Angela doesn’t need me to root against her. She is her own worst enemy

Jeffrey? I don’t think I’ve actually seen his designs bec. I keep staring at his NECK. Just kidding…I thought the trousers to last weeks outfit (the non-Keith designed outfit) were kickass.